Why the fawk are they takin it out on the railroad when the oil companies are the ones loading the tanks with Bakken crude that contains explosive natural gas that the tanks in question are not certified to carry? They could strip the gas out with a simple pressure valve on the output of the well, but they cant do anything with it but burn it off and get fined for polluting. They are the ones makin all the money, make the oil company strip the gas out. Then they would build something to collect the gas and then sell it separate. Oh,No the gas companies say, the boom may be over by then, in other words its like the gold rush get what you can get, dam everything else.

You can tell how big money controls how things are done. Don't help that I just watched the movie about Tucker and his automobile.

Just an opinion Cal, and please pardon me for stickin' my nose, uh three cents in, but the 'problem' as it exists, is multi-layered. The most visible 'target' is the railroad. Then the oil companies. Then the refiners (who buy the crude). The shippers who contract with the railroad(s) to move said crude to refineries all over hell...

But somewhere in all this, the car builders sit, collecting fees from the railroads, and leasers who rent 'em out to either shippers, oil companies, or refiners, ta move the product from wells to refineries.

If there wasn't money being made, nobody would be exploring, mapping, drilling, producing, and shipping the shit in the first place!

Saw an article in the Everett Herald with that news. Well I can tell you
a new desk-job on the other end of all the notifications has been created.
BNSF running atleast 3 a day loaded oil trains of the Bakken crude in
a circular manner to Anacortes WA and there may be others recieving
these oil trains. As the spring goes on into summer you can expext the
Bakken oil fields to have more oil than you can believe. This is a great
first step notifying all the agencies along these oil train routes even if it
will be 10 times a day in some places. Of course once the states get
tired of being notified of all the oil trains running to day they get bored
with it all.

I'm starting to think about when the Cherry Point refineries
get adapted to the oil trains arriving a couple times daily.
Could see 4-oil trains each way a day on the BNSF Bham Sub
out of Everett. Add that to the 3 each way coal trains each
way a day and the BNSF Bham Sub equipped with CTC and
single track is going to be nightmare job for the dispatchers.
Wouldnt be surprised to hear of some "double-tracking" plans
in the future.

LASALLE, Colo. (AP) Crews from Union Pacific Railroad worked to clear a six-car oil train derailment that leaked some crude into a ditch Friday in northern Colorado.

State and local emergency officials determined that one car of the 100-car train was leaking after the 8 a.m. derailment near LaSalle, about 45 miles north of Denver.

The cause of the derailment was under investigation, said Micki Trost, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Division of Emergency Management. Crews had contained the spill to a ditch away from any waterways, Trost said.

The amount of oil spilled wasn't immediately known, but a vacuum truck was brought in to suck up the spill. Tanker trucks lined up nearby to transfer the oil.

According to The Greeley Tribune (tinyurl.com/m96ows9 ), the train was loaded in nearby Windsor with Niobrara crude and was bound for New York. Niobrara oil comes from the Niobrara shale formation in Colorado, Wyoming and Kansas. It's not considered as volatile as Bakken crude from North Dakota and eastern Montana.

Public and political pressure to make oil trains safer began last summer when a runaway oil train carrying Bakken crude derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people and incinerating much of the town. Other trains carrying Bakken crude have derailed and caught fire since then in Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia and New Brunswick, Canada

Seems pretty easy to create a job from the railroad to call whateverphone numbers to the State and Local Officials and let them know that a loaded oil train from the Bakken region is going to pass throughyour town/city every 3-4 hours...for the for seeable future.

Why waste money on a person or making someone else already employed do additional duties when it could be programmed into a computer.

Just imagine you are the Mayor of ButtFucked Nebraska who has just been woken from a deep sleep by an insessantly ringing telephone and hearing the following message:

DEAR WHOMEVER THIS MAY CONCERN....YOU HAVE WON THE COMPANY OF A 105 CAR, 14 THOUSAND TON TANK CAR TRAIN OF BAKKEN CRUDE OIL. MAY WE RECCOMMEND THAT YOU STAY CLEAR OF THE TRACKS BETWEEN ???? AND ???? (MDT) BECAUSE THE TRAIN IS GONNA GO THRU YOUR TOWN LIKE SHIT THRU A GOOSE. REMEMBER...SOUNDING LIKE IT'S COMING OFF THE TRACKS, DOSEN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THAT IT IS. IF YOU DO NOT CALL BACK AT 1 888 BIG JOKE IN THE NEXT 5 MINUTES WE WILL ASSUME THERE ARE NO QUESTIONS. HAVE A SAFE AND PRODUCTIVE ****** DAY. WE WILL DELIVER, TOMORROW,THOUOROBREDLY,.........................................................................................................................................................BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP...PLEASE HANGUP................BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP...................PLEASE HANGUP........